That afternoon after doing a weather check I realized a bit of weather was predicted for later that weekend. Nothing serious, but it meant I'd have to either move north before I had planned or remain in Chacala longer than I wanted to. I had been talking to another cruiser on a boat at anchor next to me and he was planning on moving north the San Blas the next day.
San Blas has a bar across the entrance with multiple shoals in the channel, and since he had been there before, I thought it would be a good idea to follow him thru the entrance. We planned to leave Chacala at noon on Friday so we could arrive at the entrance to San Blas during a high slack tide. Since he was a sailboat and a few knots slower than me, I gave him an hour head start.
When I left Chacala the weather was glorius. Sunshine, calm winds and a flat sea. After an hour or so the wind started to rise. I was following my new friends on radar and they were about 4 miles ahead of me at the time. As I closed on him the wind continued to rise until we were about 15 miles south of the harbor entrance. It was now blowing 25 knots off the port bow. Still not a huge issue since it had just risen and the waves were mearly a short nasty wind chop. But it had slowed us both up and I was beginning to worry that we would get to the bar after high slack water.
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| "Verdia" enroute to San Blas |
When we arrived at the harbor entrance we both stood off and watched the breakers at the entrance. By that time it was rough outside and the tide was falling. I was about a hundred yards behind Verida and in between wave sets she took off for the entrance. I had a bit of catching up to do, so I shoved the throttles to the stops and off we both went. As there was an outgoing flow it slowed the much less powerful sailboat more so than it did me and in a flash I was right on her tail. It was a real E ticket ride and we plowed our way into the channel. I was really glad to have followed someone inside becuase the channel markers are NOT correct and there was another sandbar inside the channel INSIDE of the green markers where there should havae been deep water.
Next stop, San Blas..............
